1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic film viewer system for enabling an image on a processed film which is loaded into a film cartridge to be displayed as a still image on a TV monitor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, an electronic film viewer system has been known which is adapted to optically pick up an image on a processed film, photoelectrically convert it to an image signal (still image signal) by an image pickup element, such as a CCD, and display a corresponding image on a TV monitor.
For example, JPN PAT APPLN KOKAI PUBLICATION 4-68877 discloses the technique of picking up an image as image data from a corresponding frame of a film by an image sensor, after being stored in a frame memory, converting it to an image signal and displaying a corresponding image.
JPN PAT APPLN KOKAI PUBLICATION 4-68877, however, simply discloses the technique of enabling an image which is picked up from a corresponding frame of a film to be input, one by one, as an image and display a corresponding image. In this apparatus, it is necessary to ascertain the images by either picking them up, one by one, from the film or visually observing them one by one.
JPN PAT APPLN KOKAI PUBLICATION 3-229368 discloses the technique of storing image data picked up from a film by an image sensor, while displaying the data on a multi-image screen, and retrieving a wanted image from among those display images on the multi-image screen with a plurality of images displayed in divided parts.
In JPN PAT APPLN KOKAI PUBLICATION 3-229368, a description is given of the multi-image screen and not only respective images but also greater numbers of multi-image pictures are stored in memory, thus requiring a vast memory capacity.
A photograph printer device (Type: QSS-1912) manufactured by Noritsu Co., Ltd, includes a multi-image display function in which image data is read out by a scanner and a plurality of such image data (6 frames and 28 frames) are displayed at a time on a display screen so as to confirm correction done before printing.
Even in the photograph printer apparatus above, the multi-image display function is given and the image data corresponding to all frames are stored in memory and a multi-image area is created by selecting a plurality of image data from among image data corresponding to all the frames, so that a large-capacity memory is required and, in addition, a large-scale apparatus is also required.
Generally, a film requested to be processed at a developing station, etc., is cut into frame parts, after being processed, and loaded into a film case and returned back to the user. Proposals has been made in U.S. Pat. No. 5,231,439, etc., to return a film cartridge back to the user with a processed film loaded therein without cutting it into frame parts.